Hello,
I was wondering if anyone knows how to handle the tremolo marking on tied notes?
It appears that the “default” setting also selects the SECOND note that the tremolo is tied too but I do not wish for the tremolo to extend onto the 2nd note. See picture. I have tried deleting the symbol in engrave mode and this does not work.
Any thoughts and advise?
Many thanks,
Amanda
That looks like a percussion part…
In doing some soul-searching over notation things like these, I began to think that when notating a roll, while it looks very similar, maybe using a slur instead of a tie would fix the issue, and it does. And from a musical context, I think a slur is more accurate than a tie.’
It looks about the same, so it might be a good work-around or a more accurate way of notating a roll.
Robby
Thanks so much Robby,
This is actually great advice and a great 'work around AND I liked your musical context. Thank you so much for chiming in… Nice and appropriate solution.
With appreciation.
Amanda
To me the slur/tie looks confusing. It the tremolo is to end on the eighth, the eighth can remain unattached. If one wanted a special articulation (like an accent) on the eighth, one would have specified it. If you want the tremolo to just disappear at the bar line, it would probably be best to leave out the eighth note entirely.
(Of course, if you are notating this for someone else who insists on the eighth note, I expect the slur is the way to go.)
I can somewhat see your point Derrek.
The issue has to do with years upon years of non-standard percussion notation. The tie/slur in the example above indicates that the roll is to end on the beat, and is to continue through to that beat. No slur/tie, would mean to stop the roll just prior to the beat, then reattach the downbeat. This is how I have seen rolls notated for the last 29+ years of my life. Even going back to music written and published during the early 1800s. I have seen other ways to notate rolls, such as Jacque Delecluse in his snare drum studies uses the trill marking to indicate a roll.
Nonetheless, the issue is a result from non-standard percussion notation. This is why I am incredibly willing to wait for the percussion notation to be tackled correctly within Dorico. Percussionists need such a wide array of ways to notate music, and I am convinced that Dorico will do exactly what any percussionist might want to do.
Here’s to waiting happily!!!
Robby
If you want to show a tremolo on only the second note in a tie chain, go to Engrave mode, select the notehead on which you want to show the tremolo strokes, open the Properties panel, and find the ‘Single stem tremolo’ property: enable this and choose the number of strokes you want to see there.
Thank you for helping me finally find how to add and control tremolos for timpani! But why is it only available in the Engrave mode? It’s when I’m writing the notes that I want to add the roll. This means constant switching back and forth to create a timpani part. I would expect to find this under trills and ornaments – glad I found this thread to learn otherwise.
However, another curiosity remains: if I notate a 1/2 note with a roll, tied to a 1/4 note (ending the roll), the roll will not play back. If I used a slur instead of a tie, it plays back correctly. In Sibelius, the tie between notes seemed correct, and the roll played correctly too. As I import scores from Sibelius, I have to fix all of the timpani parts to reflect this change accordingly. Will this playback correctly in future versions, or do I need to re-notate each score? Or should I have been using slurs all these years instead of ties in Sibelius?
~Dennis
Tremolo is added in Write mode using the buttons in the repeats panel on the right-hand side (we include tremolos in the repeats panel because they are, at least in some idioms of music, considered a shorthand for repeated notes, just as more broadly repeat structures are a shorthand for repeated sections of notes). However, as you may have found, you can only add them to all the notes in a tie-chain in Write mode, because you can only select the entire note in Write mode (which reinforces that it’s really a single note under the hood).
When you need to show the tremolo on just one note in the chain of ties, then you do indeed need to do this in Engrave mode via the Properties panel.
At the moment, these do not play back with the tremolo effect on the right notes, but this is in our future plans.
As I am confused again and again when looking for tremolo - because I would never expect finding it under the repeats panel - I suggest to re-think the location. Tremolo is a kind of variation (modulation) of a sound and so it seems more appropriate at the ornaments-tab. The repeats and endings belong imo to bars and barlines. If You do as proposed the right panel would have one item less and it would benefit in terms of clarity.
If you want to show a tremolo on only the second note in a tie chain, go to Engrave mode, select the notehead on which you want to show the tremolo strokes, open the Properties panel, and find the ‘Single stem tremolo’ property: enable this and choose the number of strokes you want to see there.
If you really want to enter the tremolo in Write Mode, then do it the other way around from Daniel’s suggestion—enter it in Write Mode, THEN go into Engrave Mode, select the note head (JUST the note head—that’s important and messed me up for a while) where you don’t want the tremolo, and deselect the Single Stem Tremolo property in the Property panel.
I do it this way to avoid the constant back and forth you referred to in your post. Rather than do it on a one-by-one basis, I just put all the tremolos in, then, in Engrave Mode, Cmd-click all the notes where I don’t want tremolos. and change them with one click in the Property panel.